


An Old Friend And A New Beginning

by EbonyKnight



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-11 03:25:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18421836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EbonyKnight/pseuds/EbonyKnight
Summary: A chance meeting with an old girlfriend after his weekly football match sets Greg on a new path.





	1. A Blast From The Past

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock. Pity. 
> 
> Beta'd by the lovely CindyLouWho, who is wonderfully encouraging and very accommodating of my flapping. 
> 
> Feedback is given a loving home.

Greg was half way to the bar when a vaguely familiar voice called his name. The voice, a woman's though he couldn't immediately place _which_ woman, was so vivid that he stopped in his tracks and turned around, expecting to find someone waving at him. The place was packed to the rafters, as was usual for the Dog and Duck on a matchday, but he couldn’t immediately see anyone trying to get his attention, so he he mentally shook himself and continued on his way. He edged around a group of lads in Leicester City shirts, valiantly resisting the urge to offer his condolences, and it was then that he heard it again. “Oi, Greg, you git!”

Greg looked around again, but this time his eyes landed on the woman forcing her way between the Leicester City supporters, and he felt a wide smile take over his face. “Vanessa!” he exclaimed, opening his arms as she closed the space between them. “God, it’s good to see you!”

“I _thought_ it was you. I’d recognise that arse anywhere!” Vanessa replied as she stepped into his embrace, her smile as warm and bright as it had been thirty years ago. Back then they’d been young coppers fresh out of training, but seeing her again, it was like no time at all had passed at all. 

“You look fantastic,” he told her, drinking in the changes wrought by the passage of three decades. Naturally, there were lines around her eyes and her hair was liberally salted with grey, but she looked the same to him as the day she’d left London for Birmingham. Acting on instinct, Greg kissed the top of her head, the texture of her tight curls against his lips unleashing a cascade of memories. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m down for my niece's wedding. My brother Patrick plays for the team your lot just trounced, so we came to cheer him on. You know Patrick: he’s the bloke you took out at the knees in the first half.” Grinning, Vanessa shook her head. “There’s no need to look so proud of yourself, Greg; even _I_ know that tackle was barely legal.”

Knowing immediately to which tackle she was referring, because he really _was_ proud of it, Greg laughed. “Oh, come on! Even _he’d_ admit it was a thing of beauty.”

Vanessa hummed, her deep brown eyes sparkling. “You always were poetry in shorts.”

“Will they mind if I steal you for a bit?” Greg asked hopefully. “Have a drink with me for old times’ sake.”

“Course not, as long as I don’t tell my brother I’m consorting with the enemy.” She went up onto her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “A large white wine for me, ta.”

Greg watched as she melted into the crowd, unable to help a nostalgic smile spreading. They’d started at Hendon police training college at the same time, back in eighty one, both barely eighteen and very wet behind the ears, and had formed an instant bond. That bond had seen them through their early years on on the job, and five years of on and off dating before Vanessa had taken a job in Birmingham and they’d decided to call it day rather than trying to make a long distance relationship work. Inside of five years they’d both married other people, and Greg and Pauline had welcomed Libby into the world. Back then, before the advent of instant messaging and social media, they’d tried to keep in touch by phone, but their weekly phone calls had soon become monthly phone calls and then half-yearly calls, before eventually petering out completely. 

“Oi, mate, are you ordering?” a short, angry-looking man next to him demanded. “If not, get out of the bloody way.”

“Yeah, sorry. Not with it,” Greg replied, turning his attention to the waiting barman. While he waited for his pint of Fosters and large white wine, he pulled his phone out and sent a group message to his teammates so they wouldn’t come looking for him. The anticipated winky faces started arriving within seconds, to which Greg’s characteristically eloquent response was a quickly sent ‘Fuck off, you tossers’. 

Moments after he had returned his phone to his pocket, a warm hand landed on his hip. “I’m all yours for the next half an hour,” Vanessa told him, voice raised over the background noise generated by a pub full of football players and fans. It might only be amateur teams comprised of middle-aged men who did proper jobs the rest of week, but it could get just as rowdy and heated as when the Premiership matches were screened. 

Smiling, Greg picked up their drinks and turned to face his old friend. “Outside?” he suggested, nodding towards the side door. Though it was still a bit on the chilly side, it was sunny and they would at least be able to hear each other speak.

Moving carefully so as not to spill anything, Greg followed Vanessa out into the beer garden, shooting a warning look at his curious teammates as they passed. 

“So,” Vanessa started once they’d found a table and Greg had carefully set their drinks down. “You’re still working for the Met and playing football. If it wasn’t for the grey hair, I’d be wondering if the last thirty years were something that happened to other people.”

“Oi,” Greg protested, smiling against the rim of his glass, “I’ll have you know that the grey makes me look ‘distinguished’.”

“Oh, I didn’t say you’re not still gorgeous,” came the amused reply, complete with complementary wink. “Just...God, Greg, it’s been _years_. I thought about getting in touch more than once, but time just ran away and then I thought it’d been too long and...well, you know what I mean.”

Greg reached across the table and took her hand. “I know. It was more me than it was you, ‘Nessa. Work and family just consumes everything, and before you know it you’re fifty with the wrinkles and grey hairs to prove it.”

“Doesn’t it just? I’ve got a grandson, Greg. A _grandson_. And, if that wasn’t enough, work keep sending me emails about retirement packages.”

“No grandkids for me yet, but I feel ya about the emails.” Greg looked across the table and the decades just seemed to away. “So, tell me what’s happened in the last thirty years.”

A lot had happened, it transpired. From London to Birmingham to Nottingham, Vanessa had picked up a husband, three children, and one grandson en route, and had become one of the first black women to achieve the rank of Detective Chief Superintendent in the country. Greg couldn’t have been prouder of her if he’d tried. 

“That’s amazing,” he said, smiling widely, when she finished. “You always had designs on getting to the top.” 

Vanessa returned his smile, eyes shining. “I know. You, though,” she replied, pointing at him with her half-full glass, “you always said you’d hand your warrant card in before you got tied to a desk. Something about pen-pushing bureaucrats having their heads so far up their arses that they wouldn’t know a proper criminal if one was pissing on them, wasn’t it?”

That startled a laugh out of Greg. “God, was I really that daft?”

“Oh, yes. Come on, your turn. You made DI, right? I remember seeing you on the news a few years back, talking about that Sherlock Holmes character.”

“Yeah. Between us, though, I applied for DCI last week. I’ve got an interview next month.”

“Oh, you’ll walk it,” Vanessa assured him with confidence. “You never lacked ability, even when we were rookies.”

“You always were good for my ego.” Greg drank and took a moment to think about how much had happened seen they’d last spoke. “Me an’ Pauline didn’t last. You were right when you pegged her as a manipulative bitch, but it took me too long to really see it. The divorce came through on my fiftieth birthday, and it was the best present I could’ve got.”

“I’m sorry. I wanted to be wrong, but…” Vanessa shook her head. “You had a daughter, though, yeah?”

“Yeah, Libby. She’s teaching GCSE and A Level English in Bristol,” Greg replied, not attempting to mask his pride. “She’s got designs on being headteacher within the next five years.”

“A woman with drive; I like her already.” Vanessa tapped a blue fingernail against the side of her now-empty glass. “What about your love life? You’re not cut out for the singledom, Greg.”

Greg shifted against the bench and drained the last of his pint. “I’m...after Pauline, I didn’t want to get that involved again, you know? Having my happiness so tied up in someone else didn’t really work for me.”

Demonstrating that she’d lost none of her ability to read him like a book, Vanessa narrowed her eyes. “There’s a ‘but’ there. I can hear it.”

“It’s a bit complicated,” Greg started, not quite sure how to describe what he had going on with Mycroft. “Well, there’s this...His name’s Mycroft. We were friends for years, but the last year or so...he’s not really a fuckbuddy but we’re not together, either.” He shrugged, because that was about the long and tall of it. It wasn’t no strings sex, because that didn’t encompass lazy mornings spent in bed or the fluttering deep inside whenever Greg thought about him, but neither was it a committed relationship. 

If she was surprised to hear that he was involved with a man, Vanessa didn’t show it. She reached across the table and twined their fingers. “You want to be, though, even if he _is_ a Tory.”

Greg snorted, amused at the thought of Mycroft stooping low enough to become embroiled in sordid party politics. “He’s not a Tory, ‘Nessa. A perfectionist snob with far too much power for anyone’s good, maybe, but he ain’t a Tory.”

Vanessa’s mouth formed an ‘o’ of mock surprise. “How can a bloke with a name like ‘Mycroft’ _not_ be? I thought names that posh came with Toryism built in.”

“Me, too, ‘til I met him. He’s...it scares me, honestly. After the lies and cheating, I swore I wouldn’t get that involved again, but he’s making me want to.”

“Aww, Greggie’s in love,” Vanessa said, tone teasing but gaze warm. “We’re not getting any younger; if he’s making you happy, don’t second guess it because of what that cow did to you. We both know she was behind us losing contact, so don’t let her cut you off from someone else.”

Eyes on their hands, Greg sighed. Pauline had never liked Vanessa and she’d made no secret of it. It had been obvious in the way she looked at her when they’d been out with mutual friends, and her expression when Greg mentioned her name or spoke to her on the phone, but Greg had been too committed to her and to making it work that he’d allowed it to happen. “I’m sorry. You were my best friend and you deserved better.”

“Hey, not your fault. She’s a nasty, manipulative bitch, and she was never going to be happy about me being around, not with our history.”

“Hm,” Greg hummed, feeling his good humour return. “And what a history it was, too. Do you remember our first official reprimands?”

“Oh, yes,” Vanessa laughed, expression lighting up. “I think I’m the only Detective Superintendent with a black mark on her record for getting caught shagging a colleague in a stationery cupboard.”

Laughter bubbled out of Greg. He didn’t think he’d ever forget the look on Bradstreet’s face when he’d found them wrapped around each other, boxes of paper clips at their feet, and wearing far fewer clothes than was strictly regulation. “We had some good times.”

“The best,” Vanessa concurred. “We’re staying in touch this time.”

“We are,” Greg smiled. “How long’re you down here for?”

“I’m going back home tomorrow, but you’ll be coming up for dinner before the month’s out.” The cheeky smile Greg had fallen in love with all those years ago stole across her mouth, and she continued, “You can bring your Tory with you. It’s always fun to watch the posh type realise that life exists outside of London.”

Greg huffed a laugh and rolled his eyes. “He’s not a Tory and he’s not mine, but I’ll definitely be up for dinner. Nottingham, yeah? Have they built a motorway that far north?” he teased, revelling in the way their easy back and forth was re-emerging. 

“There’s even running water and flushing toilets.” Vanessa glanced at her watch and her eyes widened. “Bugger, I’ve got to go.”

With a look at his own watch, Greg was surprised to find that over an hour had passed, and stood up. “It’s been so good to see you,” he said, opening his arms. 

“It has.” Vanessa stepped into his embrace and returned it with one of her own. “Oh, yeah,” she said, stepping back. “I need your number. Or is Facebook better?”

Greg withdraw his phone and swiftly created ‘Vanessa Harris’ as a contact. “Give me your number; I’m on Facebook but I only really use it to stalk Libby and my sister’s kids.”

Vanessa laughed and recited her phone number. “I found you on there when I joined and nearly added you, but that bit— Pauline was in your profile picture so I steered clear.”

“She’s out of the picture now - literally,” Greg replied, calling the newly entered number. “That’s me ringing.”

She withdrew her phone from her bag. “Got it.” She hugged Greg again, the strength of her embrace belying her small frame, before going up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “I’ll be here all night if I don’t go now. I’ll be seeing you very soon.”

Greg watched her disappear through the pub doors, feeling a warmth that was keeping the spring chill at bay. They’d been lovers and best friends, the latter surviving the cessation of the former, at a critical point in their lives, and he couldn’t have stopped the smile taking control of his lips at the thought of having her back in his life if he’d wanted to.


	2. A New Beginning

Two hours later, Greg had finished his fifth pint and was still smiling, a fact which had not gone unnoticed by his teammates. 

“Come on then, spill,” Ash, their keeper, said, putting a fresh pint down in front of Greg. “That bird’s not just a friend if she’s left that dippy look on your face.”

“But she is,” Greg replied teasingly, and lifted his glass with a wink. “Cheers.”

Neither Ash nor the others listening in on the exchange in the hope of picking up some juicy gossip looked particularly convinced and Greg’s smile widened. The truth of the matter was that it wasn’t Vanessa keeping him smiling as much as thoughts of Mycroft, but that wasn’t something that he was going to share. Not before he’d spoken to the man himself, anyway. 

He looked down at his phone, which was displaying a half composed text message. He knew the other man preferred phone calls, but this wasn’t a conversation he wanted his teammates overhearing, and if he rang to say ‘can we talk?’ there wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance that he’d get away without saying why. _Fuck it,_ he thought decisively; there were only so many ways he could say ‘I need to talk to you. Can I come over?’ without arousing suspicion, and dallying wasn’t helping matters. Greg hesitated, added ‘xx’ to the end of the message, and hit ‘send’ before he could talk himself out of it. 

Turning his attention back to his teammates in an effort to distract himself, he quickly joined in the joyous reliving of that afternoon’s victory against the Hampstead Heathens. It was only an amateur league, but the standards were high and competition fierce, so to come away with a win was never anything less than celebration-worthy. However, before he could get too caught up in the replay, his phone vibrated against the table, and, with a flutter of nerves, Greg picked it up. 

**Mycroft Holmes:** How intriguing. I’ll see you soon.

The nervous fluttering in his gut increased tenfold; Greg knew that that this was either going to be the best move he’d ever made or an absolute disaster. Steeling his nerves, he tapped out ‘on my way’ and stood up, leaving the rest of his pint untouched on the table. “Excellent match, lads,” he said, slipping his phone into his pocket. “I’ll see you next week.”

He made a swift exit, escaping before anyone could ask questions that he wasn’t ready to answer, and was unsurprised to find an available taxi pulling up immediately outside the pub. “Alright, mate. Pall Mall, please,” Greg greeted as he climbed into the back of the taxi. 

The driver looked at him in the rearview mirror, a distinctly amused air about him. “Yep, I know.”

Greg sighed as he settled into the back seat; of course the taxi driver knew where he was going. ‘Bloody show off’, he sent to Mycroft as the driver started to navigate his way through central London, and a huffed laugh escaped when the ‘...’ indicator was swiftly followed by ‘Is this news to you, Detective Inspector?’

The journey to Mycroft’s house didn’t take long at all, not with every traffic light they approached turning in his favour, and Greg found that he was almost vibrating with urgency by the time they arrive. “Cheers, mate,” he said, attempting to pass a twenty pound note through the gap in the Perspex screen when the taxi came to a halt.

The driver waved his money away. “Mr. Holmes has an account; it’s covered.”

Taking a moment to pull his thoughts together, Greg watched the taxi disappear into the spring evening and took a deep breath. Though he was unsure just what about his hour spent with Vanessa had set him on this path, he didn’t doubt for a moment that it was the right one, and that certainty carried him straight to the front door. 

The door opened almost immediately, revealing Mycroft dressed casually in light slacks and without a waistcoat or tie. “Well, this is an unexpected pleasure,” he said, waving Greg into the house. 

Greg barely waited until the door had closed behind him to get into Mycroft’s personal space. “I wanted to see you,” he said, settling his hands on the other man’s waist. He’d only left at ten o’clock that morning, but it felt like it had been so much longer. “You don’t mind, do you?.”

“Not at all,” Mycroft replied, wrapping his left arm around Greg’s waist. “Victory on the pitch suits you.”

Mentally cursing their four inch height difference, Greg raised himself up on his tiptoes to gain the extra height he needed to kiss Mycroft. “You should come and watch me play sometime. There’s plenty of space for family.”

Mycroft walked Greg backwards two steps until he was pressed against the wall. “Are you asking me to be your WAG, Greg?” he asked, eyes shining.

Heart beating double time, Greg threaded his fingers through the other man’s thinning hair. “No: I’m asking you to be my partner, but I’m not gonna complain if you want to stand around and talk about how hot my arse is in football shorts.”

“In that case, how could I refuse?” The kiss Mycroft initiated was so intense that Greg’s toes curled in his trainers. With the hand not in Mycroft’s hair, Greg took hold of his arse and pulled their bodies flush, revelling in the feeling of the other man’s body against his own. How long they stayed like that, locked in an embrace that was somehow both tender and fierce, Greg couldn’t have said, but Mycroft eventually gentled the kiss enough to murmur, “Bed, I think.” 

“Nuh-uh,” Greg replied, grinding his rapidly hardening cock against Mycroft’s thigh. “No point, not when there’s a perfectly good wall right here.”

Mycroft bit Greg’s bottom lip sharply enough that Greg moaned. “We are _not_ having sex in the hall like a pair of rutting animals.”

“Spoilsport,” Greg grumbled, feathering kisses across Mycroft’s jaw, paying particular attention to the sensitive spot just below his right ear, eliciting a rare, quiet moan from his lover. 

“Yes, I am,” Mycroft growled, stepping back to put some space between them. “Bed. Now.”

Despite Greg’s best efforts, Mycroft was still fully clothed when they made it to the bedroom, but that state of affairs didn’t last for very long. Long experience had taught Greg that it was far more efficient to remove their own clothing than it was to try to stripping each other, and he watched hungrily as Mycroft made quick work of his clothes. “Gorgeous,” Greg told him as his boxer shorts joined the neatly folded pile of clothes on the chaise.

“Why are you still dressed?” Mycroft asked, settling on the bed with far more dignity than a nude man sporting mussed hair and an impressive hard-on should possess. 

“I’m enjoying the view.” And what a view it was. Pale, freckled skin and legs that went on for miles, Mycroft really was a sight to behold. Greg had never been with a ginger before they’d fallen into bed together that first time, but something about the coppery hair at the base of Mycroft’s cock practically had Greg’s mouth watering. “Fuck, look at you,” he breathed, finally starting to shed his clothes. 

“Hmm,” Mycroft hummed, taking his own cock in hand. “Though I’m rather hoping that you’re going to do more than look.”

“Oh, I am,” Greg promised him, crossing to the bed. “Much, much more.”

Their bodies come together in a blissful meeting of skin on skin, hands wandering and mouths worshipping. By the time Mycroft wrapped the long fingers of his right hand around their cocks, stroking them together, Greg could barely think straight and their kisses had grown messy with need. The quiet, needy sounds Mycroft made went straight to Greg’s core, and one bitten off moan from his lover was more than his willpower to make this last could take; Greg climaxed with Mycroft playing his body like an instrument, drawing out every last bit of pleasure before following him over the edge.

They kissed as they came down from their orgasms, murmured endearments and praise passing between them, and something deep inside Greg glowed. “So,” he said, settling against Mycroft’s side, mess be damned. “Are we a thing now? A proper one, I mean. You know, committed.”

Mycroft hummed and kissed Greg lazily. “I’ve been committed to you since the night I invited you into my bed.”

Greg froze, the hand that had been stroking Mycroft’s chest stilling just below his left clavicle. “You what?”

The younger man’s eye-roll was audible. “If I had wanted no-strings sex I would have continued to fuck faceless nobodies when the mood struck, Greg.”

“I — why didn’t you say something?”

Finger-combing Greg’s hair, Mycroft sighed. “You were not emotionally ready to make such a commitment; asking for something you were not ready to give would have jeopardised our friendship and I was unwilling to take the risk.”

“Oh,” Greg replied, twirling his fingertips through Mycroft’s reddish chest hair. There was no doubt in his mind that Mycroft was right; until that afternoon, Greg would have sworn that he was happy with their causal arrangement. “You’re right. Of course you’re sodding right.”

“Naturally.” Greg didn’t need to see Mycroft to know that a smug little smile was curling his lips. “Now, tell me about this ex-girlfriend of yours, to whom I apparently owe a debt of gratitude.”

“Well,” Greg said, knowing Mycroft too well to question how he knew about Vanessa, “back in the mists of time, when I’d just finished training, there was this stationery cupboard…”


End file.
